Soteriophobia and Snark
by SleeplessShinyOne
Summary: "And yet they're jade and blue equilibrium and they could share a kiss or two, maybe, if the sunset's right and Vriska's in a good mood and Kanaya's brave that day." Will eventually turn into a series of short fics about VrisKan. Some will be romantic, some will be friendship, some will be mournings of unrequited love, but there is lots of angst and fluff. Rated M for much cursing.
1. my observations

A/N: More Vriska and Kanaya. Guess who decided to start a story that will be a collection of drabblethings maybe. Somebody take my temperature, please, because I'm just rambling at this point... As most of my "genius" "ideas" are, this little thing was inspired by sleeplessness at three in the morning and my inevitable love of VrisKan and also things that have happened canonly and OMG NO WAY REALLY in my real actual human being life and GOD I'M SO RAMBLY I WILL SHUT UP NOW.

Written from an interesting point of view, that is, I'M DOING A CHARACTER STUDY OF VRISKAN FOR THE FIRST PART (CHAPTER) OF THE STORY. DRINKS ALL AROUND!

I need to to go the hell to bed.

* * *

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part one: my observations_

* * *

Vriska and Kanaya.

They work.

Somehow.

I like to imagine them talking every moment they get; Vriska secretly thrilled that someone demonstrates appreciation for her, Kanaya secretly thrilled that her crush cares so much about her opinions.

But that much is probably obvious and quite canon, now I think about it. A little more up-close would be Vriska's shudder when Kanaya's nails gently scrape the underside of her wrist, or Kanaya's worried, compulsive preparation for Vriska's visit to her hive.

Kanaya must, by law, be the expectable, predictable one and Vriska must always represent the spontaneous and impossible.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing now, but Vriska is most certainly made up of sarcastic Sorrys and irate WH8Ts and cold stares, reducible only by Kanaya into someone who needs someone else. Dependence, its ugly neediness and hateful begging, is what Vriska Serket fears most, so she hates Kanaya Maryam with every insincere bone in her body.

The sincere parts of her, the parts that are warm and dusty and made of fragile glass, are flushed with a deep crush on her friend, flushed so deeply at times that it is hard to maintain her irritation properly.

To continue over-analyzation, Kanaya is comprised of snark and sugar, a strange blend of a fiercely loyal moirail and exhausted caretaker. She's got a soft spot for the emotional ones, as her steady, albeit tiring, friendship with Karkat shows. That might be why crazy, mixed-up moody Vriska is the one she fell hard for.

(Or it might have been the adventurousness or the attitude or perhaps the paradox that was Vriska's hair- the messier, the prettier.)

And what does happen when you mix sugar and ice, pulsing emotions and soteriophobia?

You get Vriska and Kanaya together.

They are, as I like to call it with a certain writer's grandeur, hopelessly self-destructive. A phrase used in poems and stories and clichés as a signal flare for a doomed relationship.

They will tear each other apart. They will be the train wreck to end all train wrecks. Hearts and bones and blood and words will be spilled all over the floor and Kanaya, distraught and horrified, won't be stable enough to clean it up.

And yet they're jade and blue equilibrium and they could share a kiss or two, maybe, if the sunset's right and Vriska's in a good mood and Kanaya's brave that day. Maybe they have a future past broken china and porcelain skin; maybe there's a fortune chance on the Thief's luckiest dice that they could be more than moirails.

Perhaps someday...


	2. song and dance

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part two: song and dance_

* * *

Kanaya's hands ball into useless fists again as she stares at her computer screen, at the darkened glass where the faint outline of her own face gazes calmly back. She keeps her normal breathing style, in and out, in and out, but she really wants to just smash something.

She has not yet gotten a message from arachnidsGrip [AG].

The urge to smash something fades into common sense. What would she smash? Preposterous.

Kanaya is really awful at being angry at her friends. When people annoy her... oh, she fears for those people. She excels at grudges and revenge and epic domination plots, but if the anger is at someone she cares for, (such as a friend,) she just drops it. She lets it fall, slowly and secretively, into the pit of unexpressed emotions inside of her. Someday it'll bubble over and burn her hands and heart like boiling water, but someday isn't now, so she pretends it isn't happening.

Kanaya recently made Vriska a beautiful, slender dress to fit her beautiful, slender form, and one whole week later, Vriska has not yet uttered those two words.

**Thank you.**

Kanaya wants them more than she'd admit; she wants them so badly that sometimes, when she's depressed and lonely, she buries her face in her hands and cries _say it say it say it. Say the words_. But she knows that it's a quest of futility, and she doesn't really understand why she is holding out hope for it. Her moirail isn't the thanking type.

Vriska runs roughshod over people she hates, and she barely tolerates the ones she likes. Kanaya is still baffled that she's looked after the Thief of Light since they were only a few sweeps. Vriska Serket is a tornado. She burns bridges with everyone she knows... actually, more like she burns bridges, pathways, sidebuildings and the town halls they're connected to. She's positively outrageous and extremely dramatic, the ultimate epitome of what they call a high-maintenence friend. One of those ones who suck your energy and make you sigh exasperated sighs at ridiculous times when you are supposed to be sleeping.

The first time they had ever talked it had been about some roleplay game they had been interested in a long long time ago. When chatting with her on Trollian, Kanaya had brushed Vriska off as a know-it-all-y loner type who only cared about success, and when Kanaya told her this in her usual decisive manner, there was no response from Vriska until late that night.

* * *

It had proceeded to go a little something like this.

**arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]**

**AG: H8y. I think it was pretty br8ve of you to share your opinion of me. Not many trolls have str8-up said that I act stuck-up.**

**GA: Youre Joking**

**GA: Being Sarcastic**

**GA: Right**

**GA: Now Youll Go Be All Huffy**

**AG: Nope.**

**AG: You don't m8ke me feel irria8ted as much as some of the others do. In consquence, I do not dislike you.**

**GA: Interesting**

**GA: So You Say Your Name Is Vriska**

**AG: Yeah. What's yours? Not that I care a ton or anything.**

The troll girls had proceeded to stay up that entire night, with Vriska doing most of the talking. Kanaya gained many new nicknames, plenty of them curses, some of them playful variations of the final choice name: Fussyfangs. Kanaya learned, eyes weary with need to sleep, that Vriska liked to FLARP to feed her lusus, who was a giant spider, and she could be a little bit overdramaaaaaaaatic sometimes, and whenever she said "cahoots" she turned it into "cahoooooooots." Vriska learned that Kanaya typed responses slowly when she was tired, and because of this, Kanaya learned of Vriska's mile-wide impatient streak. Pictures were exchanged, hive descriptions were given, and terrible jokes, the later the worse, were shared. Kanaya, for reasons unknown to her, saved the chatlog as a document, feeling the tingle in her chest cavity that... probably signified a potential friendship?

* * *

Anyway, many sweeps and all-night pity parties later, it's so hard to hate Vriska, even though she's hyper, melodramatic, volatile, and doesn't say thank you. For every bad trait the messy-haired girl has, Kanaya can think of a matching good one.

Her computer gives off a signal and dark blue text fills her screen, and Kanaya's heart skips a beat.

**arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]**

**AG: Oh h8y. The dress fits gr8, Fussyfangs, but the neckline could be better, more low cut, ok8y?**

Kanaya sighs and grins in spite of herself.

She types quickly, eager to make her moirail happy.

**GA: Okay**

Kanaya, before hitting the OK to send off the message, suddenly feels that's a little too infinite without punctuation, even though it's her style. So she fixes it.

**GA: Okay.**

This is their song and dance. And Kanaya is willing to go along with it, because as long as she doesn't provide fuel, Vriska won't burn their bridge.

**AG: Fix it soon, Fussyfangs! The shoulder adjustments took foreeeeeeeeveeeeeeeer.**

Their weird, grand-but-crooked, slightly worn-out, mostly-finished unrequited-love half-assed-pretend-hate bridge.


	3. breathless eupnoeic

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part three: breathless/eupnoeic_

* * *

"Wake up."

I say it just loud enough for her to hear it, but not loud enough to actually make her move or legitimately awaken.

"...tired... don wanna be waken up..."

I almost tell her the stupidest thing, which is that I half-expect her voice to be filled with eights like her typing, but that's ridiculous, as I've asserted, so I don't tell her and her hive remains peaceful.

And yes, that's where we are, her hive. I've seen it before, but never spent the night. It's... uh, architecturally nice. A little bit messy with the cobwebs and shattered 8-ball fragments and clothes everywhere, but very impressively built. She has an eye for detail, and I, being a master of details myself, appreciate that.

It's strange to recall the events of the past few hours, but I do anyway, because they were really quite pleasant.

* * *

"_You think I'm a slob, don't you," she had said matter-of-factly when she'd invited me unceremoniously up the winding stairs with her and I'd glimpsed her room for the first real non-virtual time._

_"No, no, it's really-"_

_"Liar. I'm a mess," she had snapped in that singsong tease-tone, then flopped down in her giant chair, laughing bitterly._

_"It's okay," had been the only thing I could think of to say, and I didn't know if I meant the room or the fact she was disorganized, and she hadn't made me clarify which yet, so I babbled on. "These are the foolish things no one talks about."_

_She'd shrugged her thin shoulders._

_"What, what the okay refers to? It means everything, doesn't it? It means the whole entire universe and every single thing in it, that you're okay with, because you're really blasé."_

_She was better at sarcasm than me sometimes; I chose to ignore this troubling example to focus on her word choice._

_"...blasé?"_

_"Oh, you know, Fussyfangs," (here she had waved her hands around, brushing my shoulder with two fingers,)_

_"Blasé, like, pococurante or something."_

_Online, she's a bit shy with the fancy synonyms unless she's in a grand, dramatic mood, but her real-life vocabulary rivals mine._

_"Define poc-"_

_"I don't wanna, look for it yourself," she'd said, tugging on my shirt collar in that way that meant she was getting exasperated with me, so I'd hopped up next to her on that chair, my chest filling with nervous flutters at being so close._

_"I'm not that nonchalant about you," I had mumbled, a tone of hurt creeping into my voice._

_"So you do know what it means!" she had yelled triumphantly, pulling a Me Dodging Sarcasm Move and completely ignoring the other part of that statement: I care about you._

_"Yeah, I do," I had said shamefully, blushing, and then she'd leaned in and put her face right up close to mine._

_"You're adorable when you blush, you know that?"_

_That was unexpected._

_Oh._

_She had beautiful eyes, even more so than usual right at that exact moment, when she was giving me all of her attention._

_I learned then, also, what it feels like to be inundated with confusion, and most of all what it feels like to want to kiss someone so badly that it causes physical pain. It feels like tingly lips and closing eyes and sweat dripping down from your neck to your back, and an ache at the bottom of your neck where your throat is._

_And then she had actually kissed me, and her mouth was so warm against mine, and I think I had stuttered something nervously and then tangled my fingers in her hair, and by the end of the moment she had somehow ended up in my lap._

_"...-"_

_My shocked silence was interrupted by another kiss, this one mischievous, and Vriska's lips were just the softest things for someone with such hard edges. I had whispered that to her,_

_"You have hard edges, Vris,"_

_because her elbow was pressing against my side._

_"But you put up with me," had been her response. She was better at sounding...-_

_("What's a word for not breathless?" I'd panted._

_"Not this."_

_"Oh... right... I think eupnoeic works fine,"_

_"Neeeerd... shut the hell up," she'd moaned and pressed her mouth harder to mine.)_

_-than me._

_"Kan'ya," she'd whispered, and pulled away, finally, then she'd suprised me again, her newborn hunger directed at my neck, where she was scattering hot kisses._

_"Ah..."_

_She'd found a spot that made my whole body shake, and my head was swimming, and my eyes slid closed as her lips moved lightly, then harder and harder until a dark mark was prominent on my skin._

_"I bruised you," she'd said triumphantly, looking at it with her Tellmeyou'reproudofme eyes._

_"Congratulations." My voice had wavered and I'd looked up at her with eyes that must have been hazy and nervous._

_"Yay."_

_Vriska had grinned wickedly._

_"Did that feel good?"_

_"Yes," I'd answered perhaps too enthusiastically._

_"Gooooooood," she smirked, and then she'd thrown her head back and laughed hard._

* * *

And now I'm watching her sleeping form, because it makes me feel too feverish to think of the rest, but there was more kissing and now I have three bruises on my neck, and I question what quadrant we are in.

I should probably think about this tomorrow.

Or, today, because it... it is tomorrow. Man, time is terrible.

I cuddle up beside her and she mumbles something about how she, the great and powerful Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, will make me sorry for this, and I giggle and blush again.

* * *

_A/N: The fluff. Oh God it burns. Dx_


	4. sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part four: sound and fury/ a high school au*****_

* * *

"Aaaand here's that new kid," Tavros whispers in my general direction, running a frightened hand through his mohawk at my fierce expression, and I wait the appropriate amount of time before looking up.

She's a girl, dark brown hair, shortish. What they might call a _pixie cut _in a cutesy hair salon. Her clothes are bright- she stands out in a sweeping, glittery but not tacky red skirt and white shirt, with a green clip in her hair that matches her green eyes- but her expression is stoic, and she appears to be nervous.

She says her name quietly, emphasizing the second syllable, and she spells it out quietly as well, her fingers twisting behind her back in a skittish rhythm.

_K-a-n-a-y-a M-a-r-y-a-m, no nicknames, please, _it's like a song. I hum the words and spelling absently, putting it to music.

This is stupid.

Anyway, while I'm busy with my improvisation of shitty music, the biology teacher writes it down to her dictation, then points her to a seat.

Fuck.

Saw this one coming.

The other students are giving each other nervous looks.

The only empty seat in the classroom is…

…next to me. Figures. We sit next to our lab partners, and I don't have one because there's an odd number of us- eleven- and "I work _fine _by my_self,_" as I'd snapped at Tavros's shy attempt to pair us up. That kid is hopeless. He's the only one in the class who actually tries to talk to me.

The rest of them are afraid.

I don't mind that. I made them afraid. In lower grades, one through four, I'd been _that girl who starts the fights and beats up the older boys at recess so badly that they cry,_ and now, in tenth grade, I'm still _that_ _girl_, but more of _that girl w__hose parents never show up for conferences,_ the one whose name gets whispered between teachers like a curse.

_Serket. Oh God, I have the Serket girl in my class. _The English teacher even writes it on my monthly detention slips, like this: _Serket. Period Four. Late to three classes in one week._

I doubt half of them know my first name.

**"**_**Its! **__**VRISKA! **__**you! pathetic! motherfucking! asshole! loser! bastards!"** _I daydream about spray painting on the front of the building, in angry blue letters with a missing apostrophe and eight randomly distributed exclamation points to show every English teacher at this hellhouse exactly what I think of their lessons._  
_

And now down the aisle comes Miss Smartypants (pardon me, Smartyskirt) with a neat stack of brand-new textbooks probably slid all prim and proper into that red backpack. Who honestly matches their backpack to their outfit on purpose? And wait till she hears about the uniform policy here. She's one of those rich fashion-obsessed girls, I'll bet on it, and her daddy will come to protest his daughter's right to dress up fancy.

"High-school cliches, goddammit," I grumble, leaning on my chair and resting my head on the counter and smoothing my messy hair. I _like_ having the whole back lab table to myself. It feels like my own island.

Guess whose island was just invaded?

She perches tentatively on the edge of the seat next to me, busying herself with neatening her pencil case on the desk and taking out a piece of paper.

"Hello," she says eventually. "What's your name?"

Karkat, the irritable jerk of the entire class who only I can out-curse, has got his head bent back and is shaking it frantically at the newcomer with those stupid bulging eyes wide in warning, as if saying _don't talk to her, she'll just bite you, she'll rip you to shreds._

I give him the most pleasant middle finger I can manage behind the teacher's back. This, I have privately nicknamed, is the-glasses-pushing-up-one where I pretend to adjust said eyewear. He looks fearfully at my hands: clenched fists. He gulps and retreats into his textbook. This is the only time he's really seemed interested in it, amusingly enough.

I open my mouth to answer the fancy skirt girl.

"SERKET! What did I tell you about appropriate jewelry!"

I cannot tell KaNAYa my name at the moment, because my teacher is now having a catastrophic fucking aneurysm over my dangly spiderweb earrings.

"Don't have any worries fill up that empty head of yours, I'll take them off, _Sir._" My eyes narrow viciously, and I make my way over to his desk, pull them from my ears, and deposit them on his newly graded tests, maintaining a large, quite sharklike grin the entire time. Name me Jaws. Write it on my slip. Anything but-

"Detention, Serket," he sighs. "I thought we were going to start this term off fresh. But you cannot seem to maintain a respectful attitude."

"_Fresh_ is one way of putting it, Sir." I shoot him my most winning smile. "Also, please continue calling me by my last name only, like a delinquent. I just _love _it."

"You _are_ a deliquent," Terezi adjusts her designer eyewear and fakes a coughing fit over her dreadfully unoriginal comment, and her friends burst into giggles like her cowardice not to actually say it is hilarious. Even my semi-loyal standby, Tavros, gives me his "What the heck are you doing?" face.

"Don't make me give you enough slips for a week! I am sick and tired of you mouthing off in this classroom!" His face is a humorous shade of red.

"Fine. But you might have to schedule those detentions around the other detentions they give me weekly for displaying originality and disobeying my robotic overlords- sorry, what? I meant breaking the sacred dress code and not walking quickly enough during a fire drill."

I smile winningly again and walk back to my seat, blowing Terezi a kiss with my middle finger on the way. She falls silent. I arrive back at my island. Well. _Our_ island. The new girl is mildly in awe.

Great show, old chap. Great show. I pat myself on the back, mentally. I am so horrible and it's so awesome. It makes me feel better to act out the persona of how I terrible I actually am. But I don't get congrats on slaying the dragon (teacher, meh, same thing,) or even a stuttered apology from _K-a-n-a-y-a M-a-r-y-a-m. _I get something oddly pedestrian and out of place, even though it's sort of relevent.

"What _is _your name?"

I wait the appropriate amount of time as custom, and turn my head to the new girl. My eyes meet hers for the first time and she shivers. I have perfected my Death Stare, and it's on full power. I open my mouth.

* * *

"Vriska," she says defiantly, shaking locks of messy wavy blonde hair out of her face while still not breaking her death-grip eye contact.

"Vriska Serket." The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them and my cheeks are suddenly flooded with color.

She confirms her status as this individual with a nod.

That was foolish of me. I must appear an imbecile.

She's so confident, and although I see her terrible behavior, I can see through it, too... to what? The canvas this delinquency is painted on is a mystery.

That's a poetry sentence. I remind myself to write it down later.

"You write poetry?" The smartass arches herself back in her chair, and she gives me a withering look from behind horn-rimmed glasses. Mind-reading... does not exist. Or does it? Mild, irrational panic sets in.

"Wh-what?"

"Your notebook."

The edge of my spiral-bound journal is poking out of my bag, and it has the beginning of one of my favorite, albeit depressing, quotes on it. Vriska reads the first four words, which are all that are visible, but she keeps going.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

"We're watching a movie, class," the science teacher says, ruining the moment and turning off the lights. Feeling surreal and weightless, I take my awe and wonder at the poetic, detained Serket girl and use it to stare at her in the dark as she sprawls out over the desks and makes dry, hilariously observant comments that nobody laughs at and tells the earnest-looking boy with a fuzzy mohawk to shut up. Her eyes glint in the dark like she knows I'm watching, and she licks her dry lips, seeming content with knowing I see her.

-Likes _Macbeth _enough to memorize a quote.

-Wears her uniform with unbuttoned-in-just-the-right-way flair. Admirable, but

-she doesn't care enough to tie her hair back, or is doing it rebelliously.

She squints at the TV right next to us, and I keep adding to my sparse mental list of Vriska notes.

-Wears glasses for distance, but also probably needs them for reading.

"Yeah, uh, bad poetry," I manage to stammer, answering her question from before for whatever reason. Instead of accusing me of blatant randomness, she nods and barely raises herself up, but somehow still looks me in the eyes upside down, her head and shoulders dangling, fingers gripping the cheap fake wood, white strands of hair brushing the floor.

_The canvas this deliquency is painted on is a mystery._

"Okay," she says, making it seem like a few words or perhaps a paragraph. I see the way she tilts herself, looking at me with eyes that are haughty and deep in the dark room.

-Attention seeker.

"How did you know?"

"I told you. Your notebook."

"Does the love of Shakespeare define a poet? That's sort of cliche, don't you think?"

The smile melts from Vriska's face and she offers only a blink of her eyes, accompanied by another lick of her lips. She reasons with me:

"You _look_ like a poet."

And I am just filled with idiocy today, and have to share it with her, apparently:

"So, uh, do you."

"No, sweetheart," a hiccupy laugh slips into her tone as she leans in to whisper, "no, I look like someone who smashes windows, and will rob you blind, and then smile. I look like a girl who, when you're trying to love her, will kiss you just with teeth and squeeze your heart so hard it hurts and then breaks, which is maybe why no one has asked me out. Too afraid. They're all afraid. I'm not docile and I don't spout bullshit about the beauty of the flowers. Not a poet."

Her voice is grand and strong and lyrical as she spreads her arms and legs and shrugs with her whole body.

I feel the dull thrill of more awe swim through my head, and I just stare.

I feel like I'm making stab-in-the-dark guesses, but I think I've gotten a hint of what may be behind that canvas. She doesn't contain any of the people I know. She bears no resemblance to anyone; well, maybe a pirate in an old storybook or a daring tomb robber or a runaway ruler, but no one superficial. She doesn't use the suffix "uh" or "like" after every word, like every other girl in the high school, and I can't see her on Facebook or Twitter gossiping about what the stars are up to, or even knowing any of the stars' names. She probably gives long, eloquent speeches with ridiculous, unrealistic comparisons that somehow work perfectly, like she did about poetry, and when she's done she gives a shrug, like she also did there. She probably likes risks, and will do things to impress people, but is fiercely independent.

I ache to know her, and I ache to be her friend, suddenly; I want to be the only one she trusts.

* * *

***A/N: This is actually a story-in-a-story because this AU has now caught me entirely by the collar and I can't finish it without using a few chapters. So the next chapter will also be about this. Whoo. Leave me a review, please. I like reviews very much. I never be for reviews except now. Please click the button. Tell me what you think. ^_^'**


	5. part 2: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part four and a half: sound and fury/ a high school au_

_(song lyrics from "the gambler" by fun.)_

* * *

I bend over my paper and try to write as neatly yet quickly as possible, my pencil bobbing as I line up every word with the little margins. The end of class is in five minutes, and I don't want to be writing up until the bell; it could make me late for Statistics, and I really want to impress the teacher. She's a hard grader, I can tell already.

_The study of binomial nomenclature is essential in ecobiology, a subsection of biology that we will be covering briefly this term._

Vriska's blue pen moves in an angry swipe, and she writes six letters:

_Ecobio. _

She then underlines it a bunch of times in afterthought as if to emphasize yes, that's all she'll write on this topic.

"Are you going to-"

"No. No, I'm not going. Dances are for ridiculous romantic idiots who are obsessed with their boyfriends."

"Oh… okay…"

I don't want to say that I was only asking about her notes, because she'll most likely either accuse me of making excuses or roll her eyes and call me a loser for writing everything the teacher tells us to. But I also didn't know there was a dance.

The bell rings, and as usual, Vriska gathers her things in one movement and walks out the back door, tossing her hair and sighing. The smiley-seeming mohawk kid- Tavros, I think- hangs back on purpose as I slide my notes into my binder pocket, looking at me as if desperate for…

"Hey, K-Kanaya, can I have some advice?"

…tips? From the new girl? He's weird.

"Uh… IwannaaskVrisatothdnce."

"I didn't catch that," I say honestly, and he mumbles, slightly slower with blazing red cheeks in one giant sentence,

"I want to ask Vriska to the dance and I don't know how because she's so independent and she's so rebellious she'll probably just go spray paint some curse words on an alley that night and not that that's a bad thing or anything not to offend her no please don't mention that to her actually don't mention anything to her but I need your help because she hasn't scared you off yet and you're her lab partner and-"

"Whoa, Tavros. Breathe. Relax."

"I am breathing! I'm relaxed!"

"Come on, let's walk to Statistics and I'll talk with you on the way."

"Okay." He grabs his binder.

"Don't forget your book," I grin. He smiles back.

I think I have made a nice new friend.

* * *

"A-are you going to the dance, S-Serket?"

That's seriously all anyone asks each other at this place. The giant-ass Valentine's Day dance is coming up and every single one of those stupid freshman won't shut up about it. Even the seniors are eager. Aradia keeps going on about her dress; see, even the goth kids care. Everyone cares. Everyone but me.

With hateful mind-venom successfully soaking my opinions of attending, I turn to answer the pimply, awkward ninth-grade kid. He's blushing hard, and holding his left hand in his pocket like a tool. Is that a flower in his opposite hand? Wow.

His calling me Serket is probably due to his noticing of the intercom calling me that name constantly, but I choose to pretend he's doing it just to piss me off.

"No. Shut the fuck up." I turn and walk away. I hear mock-sympathetic Terezi calling behind me. "It's okay, little one, she rejects everyone!"

Without even turning around, I give her the second middle finger of the hour, the fifth of the day, the tenth of the week, and it's only Tuesday, February third. This is going to be a really long month.

"Obscene gestures are highly frowned upon, Serket, should I tell a teacher?"

Good Lord. The hall monitor with the _worst _authority complex of all time, Equius, is watching me sternly. He just _loves _to act manly and responsible in front of his obvious crush, Aradia, who, despite being only a few lockers away, never notices. And even though he's in our grade, he thinks he's just the best police-officer-hall-monitor in the world and obeys the teachers like they're the gods and he's a Roman citizen struck with awe.

"Oh, go die in a hole, _Zahhak_." I've had better comebacks, but he isn't worth my wit. I spin and walk away dramatically for the second time.

Annnnd I slam right into Kanaya. I'm the one who falls over, while she stays on her feet. What a day this is turning out to be.

"Sorry- I left my books in- I mean- I-..."

She motions helplessly to my armload of textbooks, which, to my unhappiness, includes her Statistics workbook and an unfamiliar green planner. I thrust them wordlessly at her and she smiles sheepishly, extending a hand to help me up. Pretending to ignore the gesture, I stand by myself.

"Bye!" She dashes down the corridor, hellbent on punctuality.

In English, two classes later, I notice that I still have her poetry notebook.

I, the terrible person I am, feel no guilt in snooping through it.

* * *

School's finally out, and I'm walking absently down the hallway, putting the last of my supplies in my bag, when I freeze.

Oh God, no. Oh, no. No. My poetry journal isn't here.

I feel my stomach twist into knots and my heart begins to pound. Surely it's right under all of this stuff-

-nope.

Damn it. What if some teacher reads it? What if some STUDEN-

Vriska. Vriska had my books by accident earlier.

_Calm down, Kanaya,_ I reassure myself, hands shaking_, she probably wouldn't care enough to even open it, let alone actually read it._

But what if she does? What if she sees everything?

My head spins in horror and fear, and I have to lean against the wall to stop the cold sensation of panic from spreading to my abdomen- too late.

I have to find her.

My cheeks burn in anticipation of the humilation of asking as I walk back around the corner to the place where I see her putting her books away sometimes- probably her locker.

Another long-haired girl stands close by the spot- her hair is dark, however, to match her dark clothes. When she turns, her icy eyes pierce me, and she says in a half-irritated, half-curious tone, "What?"

"Nothing- I'm just looking for Vriska-"

"Mm.. ha, first one to do so, I see." She tosses her hair, and as she does so, I observe the muscled hall monitor nearby swoon a little bit.

Someone has a crush.

My notebook is pushed out of my mind for a brief moment. I have a knack for observing things, being "in the know" without being involved in the drama and gossip.

"Uh... yeah, have you seen her?"

The hall monitor adjusts his hair and makes a face into the glass display case, checking his reflection. I stifle my urge to giggle and look back at the black-clad girl, who is giving me her answer.

"She took her books and left like five minutes ago. I think she went to the parking lot."

"Okay! Thanks."

"Anytime," she sighs, fixing the mirror in her locker.

I head in the direction she'd indicated, and only look back once. The hall monitor is now talking with her. I hear the words "dance" and "honor." Smiling faintly, I swing my bag onto my shoulders and leave through the south parking lot door.

I am greeted with a mildly baffling sight.

Vriska is kicking the tire of a beat-up pale blue car- a Pontiac Firebird, according to the logo emblazoned on the back- and screaming at it to work.

"Er." I make a coughing noise.

She looks up, and her eyes meet mine, and her cheeks actually turn red.

I didn't know until now she was capable of blushing.

"It doesn't work," she explains in a small voice. "And I don't know how to dance."

"What..."

Vriska's eyes are a soft grey-blue and she gazes hopelessly at me.

"This is my car," she says, continuing the cycle of randomness.

"What..."

"Its name is Damien," she adds to all of this. "It was named for this guy my parents knew who babysat me as a kid and because he owed my parents one from something he gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. Stupidity, I know. But it's the only ride I have home. And that's why I don't wanna go to the dance, because nobody ever taught me how to."

"Vriska..."

"Stop gawking!" Tears glimmer in her lashes for a moment and her voice cracks. "Come over here and get your stupid beautiful poetry book."

Pulling it from her bookbag, she hurls it at my feet, looking angry.

I am baffled by all of this.

"Did Tavros-"

"Yes! He asked me to go with him and I screamed at him! I'm just the best person, aren't I? I said to him that I'd never go with him in million years cuz he was an asshole. And you gave him advice, didn't you, so by motherfucking extension I technically yelled at you too. I don't know why I just can't admit I can't dance. Probably because I can't admit anything."

My eyes feel wet and I realize that the sight of Vriska leaning on her car hood, throwing a temper tantrum, accompanied by the scent of smoke and new asphalt and the bitter taste of blood in my mouth, is making me very upset. Somehow, words make it through my blubbery stutters, but the words aren't sensible.

"I could teach you to slow dance, I guess."

And Vriska reaches into Damien, who shudders as if protesting, and she powers up the ancient tape player and sticks a cassette into it. She must specifically make tapes full of modern music that you can't even buy on tape nowadays- she must be one of those obscure music people, I've already decided.

Fuzzy static plays, and she curses in tune with it and kicks the car again, and eventually, a soft piano melody begins to play.

"I can't believe you agreed with me..." I mutter, but she's already letting me hold her right hand, letting me guide it to my waist and let go as I put my own hand on her shoulder, and then, after more fumbling, she's letting me twirl her around.

I feel my heartbeat and hers fluttering together, and I teach her to spin and I look into her eyes in this dull, pathetic pavement-colored parking lot, our movements surrounded and kept secretive by the battered chain-link fence. I get the sensation of being in a movie as the song begins to capture us and carry us somewhere not here, and her irises, cerulean like her pen in class, are endlessly deep and I might have blushed.

_We were barely eighteen when we crossed collective hearts  
It was cold, but it got warm when you barely crossed my eye  
And you turned, put out your hand, and you asked me to dance  
I knew nothing of romance, but it was love at second sight_

_I swear when I grow up I won't just buy you a rose_  
_I will buy the flower shop, and you will never be lonely_  
_For even if the sun stops waking up over the fields_  
_I will not leave, I will not leave 'til it's on time_  
_So just take my hand, you know that I will never leave your side_

"Kanaya,"

she says simply, softly, while the singer croons, and I realize it's the first time she's spoken my name, and I don't know what to say except

"Vriska."

We could kiss, our forms so close, but I don't know her well enough yet and there aren't enough words to soften the blows that would be dealt to both of us, so I don't lean in and neither does she. We merely keep dancing, the song going on and on and on and on and turning into a new song, then another, and then another and another, and now the sun's glinting as it hangs low in the midwinter sky, and she's pulled away, finally.

"I should go," she says, and I nod because there is no awkwarder way to break this off. So without offering me a ride home she prods the car into working and leaves me staring starry-eyed at the retreating trail of smoke, pinching my own hand to be sure I haven't dreamed this.


	6. part 3: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part four and two halves: sound and fury, a high school au_

* * *

~For my crimson moirail, the wonderful, marvelous **WBM.** You are

the alphaBETAzation to my disorganized life. FRIG YEAH HORRIBLE PUNS!

Love you endlessly. Love you in all of the universes. All of them.~

* * *

"She said maybe."

These are the first words I hear from a pale-but-ecstatic Tavros the next morning as I walk into biology and try to start taking notes. It's not a lab day, so students are scattered about the various tables and counters, sitting where they please. I don't look around any more for... fear, apparently... of seeing her. Her. Why is she Her now? She's not a villain. Maybe an entity, but an entity is still not worthy of the title Her.

Oh, right.

Tavros was talking, wasn't he?

"What?" I ask.

"She said maybe to the dance in a text. Maybe!" He smiles hugely.

And then all I can feel is my numb lips moving in the shape of what the hell, and my abdomen fills with something hot and uncomfortable and heavy, something distinctly familiar.

"-fuzzy so I couldn't-"

"Here-"

"-the paper is due next Wednesday-"

Muddled pieces of other conversations mix with the roll call in my head, but Tavros's mouth, though it's moving, is not making any sound. He tilts his head as he stops his practical monologue to breathe and I finally part my own terribly dry lips.

"Yes?!" I manage to splutter out something that sounds like a cough. I listen to myself with a kind of horrified, detached interest, not aware of what I'm speaking until it's gone. "That's... I mean, congratu- I mean, yes, wow...Great for you."

"Thanks for all your help!"

I helped with this? I reach up and touch my hair absently. It's smooth but messy-feeling, and somehow reminds me that I need to stop being a metaphorical emo ghost right now. I breathe out, pulling myself back into my body in time to hear my name being called.

"Maryam..."

"Here," I say assertively, but my voice betrays me. It cracks halfway through the "r" and makes me sound as if I've swallowed something large and plastic. I'm certain Terezi stifles a giggle at this- or is that giggle directed at Tavros's goofy, oblivious staring out of the window? Either way, she's being kind of a bitch.

I take this moment to organize my pens. ROYGBIV order. Then alphabetical. Then by amount of ink.

I quickly exhaust the pen permutation game.

I will not look up I will not look up I will not-

"Serket," the teacher calls out, and I, resigned to my predictability, look up.

I can't help it.

There is no quiet, velvety smirk accompanied by a hair-toss and a Here. In other words, Vriska is not here.

"Cutting school again, I presume," I hear the teacher whisper under his breath, frowning as he makes a decisive mark on his clipboard. I hate him suddenly, hate that his pen is such a cruel, unforgiving shade of red, hate his way of fixing his thick glasses, hate his eagerness to denounce the saintly and innocent possibilities of a missed day, (sick father, broken arm, family vacation!), placing my light-haired lab partner firmly in the category of Unexcused Absences.

_How do you know she's cutting?_ I feel protests begin to rise in my throat, but I smush them down, not wanting to start something.

* * *

I may have gone shopping for a dress for the dance.

The shops may have been filled with middle-aged women and disapproving glances and "what are you doing here kid you're supposta be in school," but I may have ignored this.

The bottom line is that I am now sitting in a tree contemplating my entire and absolute lack of said article of clothing. (I figured I might as well go with that blithering idiot Tavros boy. But as friends ONLY. And not friends, even. Pretty much acquaintances who attend a dance together. God, that sounded stupid even in my head.)

And yes. A tree. I am sitting in a tree. I nailed a bunch of wood to it as a kid and now I skip class and climb up and shout curses at the sky when I'm mad. Normally I just sit cross-legged and play with this one loose nail and think. (I skip class anyway.)

Pretty foolishly childish thing to do for That Serket Rebel Girl. They think I miss school to do drugs, I bet, or get raging drunk off cheap vodka. I have nothing against alcohol- I don't mind a beer or two when I'm home alone- but drugs aren't my style. I don't like the idea of depending on anything, and that includes speed or meth or whatever they sell behind the Pathmark in the shady part of town.

_Dependency_.

For whatever reason, the word triggers feelings. My mind wanders slowly back to Kanaya and the dance lesson. Her fingers were so slim and soft in mine, so breakable. I wonder if she's curious about where I am.

Nah.

I bet she's doing something stupidly OCD like organizing her pens in ROYGBIV order. She hasn't thought about me since then, I viciously yell into my own thoughts, just to feel better. (Self-punishment works great for making me feel better.)

I feel I'm greatly overestimating what we have, anyway. I do not desire a friend, and yet she practically insists on being kind. We've only known each other a few days. I tell myself not to overthink this.

Do not overthink this, Vriska.

"Don't." I hear a voice, realize like a psychopath that it's my own, and startle in spite of myself. It then occurs to me, in slow-motion Matrix bullet time, that I have shifted just enough for-

-me to fall-

-off of the-

-I hit the ground hard, and time returns to normal, but then that's the least of my worries. My left arm, having landed first and tensed on impact, is on fire, bent oddly. I curse and curse and curse and I writhe on the ground, screaming in pain. It feels like fire and hornets have banded together to create an exquisitely perfect representation of hell.

"Satan!" I have run out of swear words so I begin naming every incarnation of the devil I have ever heard of. I'm on Beelzebub when a stick snaps nearby, and a strange-looking man appears out of nowhere.

"Hey, honey. Need... hehehhee... a hand? You're a pretty little thing."

His leer is sick, and makes bile rise from my stomach. He continues laughing, advancing slowly, savoring the moment.

"Do you need me to help you there? I can do so much for you, hon..."

"Get away from me." My voice is calm, until he puts a hand on my shoulder. Then, I'm springing up, my legs turning to jelly under me, and all of a sudden my arm is made of nothing but liquid pain and I'm running and running and flying over thorns and brambles and all I can hear is my frenetic heartbeat. He's gaining- I'm normally quite fast, but I can barely breathe from my arm injury. There are houses up ahead- big ones- and I realize I'm in the nearby rich neighborhood. I have no choice.

I will hate myself forever for this, no doubt, but I sprint up and bang hard on the door of the house with the little Civic Coupe I've seen leaving school.

"Openitopenitopenit!"

The door actually opens. And, imagine my thrill.

She isn't about to let me in. The man is nowhere to be seen behind me.

"Why, if it isn't little miss-"

Terezi doesn't speak anymore because my fist has connected with her face and I'm already running off again.

"Stubid beliquent! I'b telling the princibal about dis!"

Hm. Nosebleed, it sounds like.

I allow myself a smirk, before realizing I just punched her with my left arm.

And then there is only pain.

* * *

It's Thursday, and I'm sitting in Bio when I overhear things.

"Did you hear about Serket?" Equius, that hall monitor from earlier, comes over to speak to his dance date, Aradia. I cock my head, listening.

"I heard she hit Terezi so hard she broke her own arm, and she broke Terezi's nose, and she's got detention every day after school for six weeks. Because she was also cutting class that day and suspension would just make her miss more school." Aradia lifts her chin, sufficiently up-to-date on the gossip.

"Hmph." Equius tuts and leans back, sighing. "A menace to society, if you ask me."

* * *

"V-Vriska?"

I look up from my haze of hurt to see a familiar green-eyed brunette standing in front of me, holding books.

"Hi." The girl who taught me to dance twists her hair nervously with her free hand.

"I brought you your schoolwork and a book, because I know how boring it is to be in the hospital," she adds, her voice curling up into a question, almost, at the end.

"It's a frickin' compound fracture," I groan.

"Ohh, sorry, that must be awful!" The sickest, sweetest sympathy fills her eyes.

"I don't want your pity, asshole," is what I'm supposed to say, but the painkillers just kicked in and then the sleep meds and God I'm so tired.

_All I remember of the rest of day was a hand in mine and dreams about flying, flying in a huge ship into the sky with ten thousand jewels and diamonds. A pretty girl named Kanaya was there, and she touched my wrist and pulled me close, then she was drifting away into the chasms and her voice rang out, "It's a trap!" and I shrugged and yelled back, "It's okay because I like your poetry."_

* * *

"I can carry my own books."

Even with her arm in a sling, Vriska is as stubborn as ever.

"If you say so," Tavros smiles nervously and gives them to her. She balances them all in the crook of her right arm.

"Did you really-"

"Hit Terezi? Yes. Break my arm doing so? Hell no."

Vriska turns up her nose at him, and storms away. I watch her go, my cheeks coloring faintly.

* * *

"Wait... seriously? I break my arm and still have to get dressed for gym?!"

Shit just got awkward.

"Yes, Serket. Have Maryam help you, like I KEEP SAYING."

I stick out my tongue at the gym teacher and sigh. She growls at me.

Weird. They aren't even human anymore, the teachers around here. I consider adding a middle finger and decide against it. Those are all for Terezi when she returns from her pity-week of mourning her beautiful nose.

Anway. I don't need stupid Kanaya's help. I can do this by myself.

* * *

"Arghfuck!"

I poke my head into the locker room to see Vriska frowning over a gym shirt, in nothing but a bra and underwear.

(I swear to God that I had no malicious or perverted intention when I looked down. It was to examine how her arm was doing.) But then I say "You having trouble?" and because it is polite to look at people when you talk to them, I have to look again.

She maintains a tan, and the blonde waves of her hair make a neat color match with it as they spill over her slim shoulders. Her bra is black and strapless and lacy, and she has curves, to put it appropriately- her hips are curved too, and... oh God... dat ass. Sorry, I meant- argh! You know what, never mind. Here: Vriska is attractive in the sense that I am mildly jealous and that-

"Are you going to stand there blushing and staring all day or are you going to go away?"

"I'm going to help you," is what I think my muffled noises mean. Or they could mean "Lime-flowing chew elfloo." Either way, she's pretty. Fantasy-castle pretty. Magazine-cover pretty. Hot, frankly. Ohmygod she could pose for Playb-

No! No. I mean that I am going to help her because that's what friends do!

"What the actual hell?" Vriska is voicing my exact thoughts- because I am staring at her again.

"Arghfuck!"

"Hey, that's my curse word!" Entirely oblivious to her broken arm and.. erm.. lack of clothes, she grabs me in a clumsy headlock. My face is embedded in her chest.

Oh, hello.

This is... kind of pleasant.

* * *

After about ten thousand more shenanigans, including helping me rob Terezi's gym locker (she didn't really help, she more like stood there and worried while I picked the lock,) Kanaya helps me put on my gym clothes and I end up watching them all play volleyball.

Funtastic.

* * *

And I spend the entire rest of the evening daydreaming about Vriska. I mean. No. I don't. That would be silly.

Then my phone rings, and it's bearing strange news.


	7. part 4: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part i don't even know anymore: sound and fury, a high school au_

* * *

She doesn't pick up the phone for like ten rings and I'm already busy cursing my bad luck.

"He'lo?"

"It's me."

"Vri'ka?...D'uyou know islike one in the morgig?"

"Oh. Were you sleeping?"

"No, I'wuz skydiving."

Even at such a late hour, she still manages to be bitingly sarcastic.

(I noticed it in her poetry already.) But enough about that.

I have a request.

I proceed to ask in an ingenious fashion.

"I have a request."

Foolproof, right?

_God, I'm an idiot._

"Wha."

"I don't have a dress for the Valentine's Day dance and I heard you're good at fashion and stuff. Make me one?"

"Dress..." she echoes drunkenly, a robot filled with useless facts.

I shouldn't have called when she was tired. She probably has no idea what a dress is at this time. At best, it's an accessory of her dream that she'll cast aside as madness.

"You should come over." I keep digging myself into my hole of stupid unreality. I already know her parents won't let me do these things, because I'm the class delinquent, and Kanaya's too pure to be touched in any way by such a creature.

"Address? I need your address..." she whispers.

She sounds awake now, and noise can be heard, like she's rummaging around looking for something.

I give it to her, and she makes a series of noises indicating agreement, then I realize something.

"You're doing this out of pity cuzza my arm!"

But she has already hung up. I slam my fist against my wall, cursing. I pay mind to the fact that it is my right fist this time.

I expect some kind of visit tomorrow.

I hate pity visits.

* * *

"Psst." KNOCK.

I cannot believe I am doing this.

I feel a rush of surreal adrenaline as I come to terms with exactly what kind of criminality I am partaking in here.

I have snuck out of my house, in the dead of night no less, to visit my detained classmate, who has just asked me to make her a dress at two in the morning.

Pardon, more like one. But it's two now, so I am technically right.

Vriska lives in a run-down section of town, in a small one-story house. Damien sits outside, along with a station wagon that seems to have seen better days. A pathetic-looking tree, too small to muster up a shadow that looks spooky in the dark, hangs over the narrow driveway.

I creep closer.

"Psst."

I rap at the window nearest me again. After a terribly suspenseful wait, it opens, and my heart jumps into my throat.

Vriska, her hair a mess and her smirk as wide as ever, pokes her head out and nearly bangs her chin into my forehead. She shouts quietly, (how is that even possible?)

"You snuck out? Why?"

"I... don't know."

There proceeds to be a long, strange silence. My bare feet tremble against the cold earth and the chill shoots all the way up to my knees. I gaze at her for what seems like a small eternity, my breath not slowing, my heartbeat still stumbling along in a series of uncoordinated throbs.

_This was a stupid idea._

"Well, come in, then."

* * *

My room's a mess. Fuck.

She glances around. My lights are on, and it makes her eyes catch said light and glow steadily.

I know I'll be the one to initiate this, so I start.

"So. I assume this is about pitying my poor arm?"

"Vriska. I... should measure you for the dress.. no... it's not about your arm... I just wanted to help..."

"Help?"

The word slips from my mouth like poison.

Kanaya nods.

* * *

So that's how I end up crouching on Vriska's floor, measuring her waist for the dress.

(...Yes, I brought a tape measure but didn't wear shoes. I don't really think when I'm tired.)

My fingers brush nervously against her flannel pajama pants as I work. When I get to her sides, I can't help but notice she's wearing a tank top that hugs her curves and comes just low enough to show cleavage.

I try and ignore this.

"You're weird, Maryam." Her voice floats down from above me, and my cheeks turn red.

"Be quiet and let me measure," is all I can say. Anything else would let her win- she's trying to provoke me, I can sense it.

Measuring her bust is difficult. She shivers and bites her lip as I wrap the tape around her chest, as if she's enjoying this.

All too soon, it's done and all written down and now she's watching me with extreme...

...worry? No.. That can't be right. I'm just so tired.

I'm just going to sit down for a second.

Just a...

...second.

* * *

"Wake up, Vriska."

The body next to mine is soft and warm, slender and lithe, and I happily cuddle closer because I'm freezing.

"...mom'll kill me," the voice adds, a twist of anxiety piercing it.

"So warm," I say happily.

"Vriska! Please wake up."

"Fuck you," I tell it and turn over...

...Only to meet directly with Kanaya's eyes.

They are an amazing jade green color.

"Your eyes are pretty," I say hopefully.

"Flattery won't get us to school," she frowns, but she looks pleased.

"Fuck." I feel my cheerfulness evaporating.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I add, snuggling up to her again for the warmth.

"I think I fell asleep while measuring you for the dress," she says reasonably. I nod.

"Let's skip school."

I suggest it just to provoke her. Ha. Her eyes flare up and she shakes her head vigorously. "I want perfect attendance!"

"No," I mumble and go back to sleep.

* * *

We take my car to school anyway. I hope Mom didn't notice it was gone from the driveway last night.

Oh, who am I kidding, she's going to murder me when I get home.

Vriska taps her foot against the dashboard.

"Get off my dash," I say immediately, and she rolls her eyes.

"When you wear my spare uniform, you let me do whatever the fuck I want, capiche?"

I laugh in spite of myself. Her skirt is too short for me; I prefer the long ones, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

The sun has begun to really come up, and I watch it furtively as we circle the parking lot like wolves, trying to find a spot. I don't want her to see me being so observant and sentimental. I feel as if she knows everything about me, but I know nothing about her.

She sees me watching it anyway.

"Like your poems, huh? Sunrise?"

I look over at Vriska in mild psuedoconfusion and mostly shame. She has her feet up regardless of my threats, and I can see that she's added red Converse to her uniform instead of the required loafers. She's breaking dress code again, and somehow she's managed to put shoes on without my notice or help despite the fractured arm. Her hair is tied back messily- for once- and her eyes burn through mine with such dark, sensual mystique that I can practically feel them searing the back of my head.

Dark, sensual mystique could also be rage. Note to self, it can always be rage.

"Yes, I suppose," is what I finally give her.

"I liked them okay."

"Uh, good," I say. I don't know her motives here. I don't think I ever will.

Vriska Serket remains a mystery.

* * *

School is vastly uneventful, besides the metric tons of detention afterwards. Detention is basically two hours of doing homework in a stifling-hot room, (stifling hot regardless of weather) while a substitute monitor stares at you, bored but unwilling to show it.

The fan whirs around (who turns on a fan when it's thirty degrees out? Honestly.) and I tap my pencil on the desk. I give up on the Statistics worksheet. It's impossible. Why do I need to know this? I've considered dropping out of school many times, but what would I do? I'd become aimless, drifting through life like a ghost.

This terrifies me more than a lot of things. I don't want to become a ghost. _You write like someone who likes to make her presence known, no matter how horrible you are_, the English teacher had written on my report. Well, without the horrible part, but it's implied based on the sheer amount of lectures I've been given in that class.

I do make my presence known.

I try, anyway.

* * *

Since Vriska went through my poetry notebook, I have no qualms about reading the assignment she gets back in English. It's just sitting there on the teacher's desk and nobody is here and while I wait to ask him my question I might as well have something to do.

Right?

_Prompt: Write about something you want in a style that you do not normally write in._

Vriska's untidy scrawl fills the paper.

_"[I want her to look at me and wince and be so jealous that blood shoots out of her ears all hot and feverish. I want the sugar on her lips to be ineffectual against my sharp wit, and I want the needles she holds to be bent and tangled up so she can't change the future with silly coercion. I want to call her by surname only until she begins to feel how it is to be Serket, and then I wanna tie our names together until they make a clash of tongues and teeth, ugly to spell but pretty to speak, or maybe I have it backwards. I want her cheeks to burn hot with my humiliation, and mine to smolder equally at her sarcasm. I want to choke the dictionary and write on its dead body my own definition of infatuation, one involving stupidity and cars and dancing and glass eyes and being a pirate. I want to be drunk on giddy lust and not cheap beer. I think this means I want to fall in love. But love is weak, so maybe not.]_

_I want the new girl to notice me."_


	8. part 5: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_sound and fury, a high school au_

* * *

I shut my eyes tightly and pull out another stitch, invented arguments echoing inside my pounding head.

I can't stand myself sometimes. Making a dress for the girl who doesn't thank me or say hi or acknowledge me half the time. I'm a puppy, running after her, and she...

...seems to return the affection, in her own...

...strange way.

Does she?

This dress was made in angry defiance over eight days and it was thirty-two hours of hell. It was hell because I sewed until my fingers were torn open and raw, hand-sewed just to make her smile, because I broke my machine trying to make everything perfect. In repayment, not one of the days did she say hello to me. She just waltzed in twenty minutes late with her backpack flapping open, papers and pens and her mumbled curses spilling everywhere amid the chastisement of various teachers.

_Look at what I did. I bled for you_, I want to whisper, holding up my red hands like a child with a good grade. _Give me a gold star._

The crickets outside continue their scratchy orchestra as I lean closer to the shimmery fabric, imagining every stitch yanked through that Tavros kid's head.

_(Why him...? I know you could do better... you could have picked someone like-)_

I throw the scissors, the nearest sturdy item, across the room, where they sail out my open window. I suddenly have the vicious, out-of-character wish that I had smashed the glass, made it feel like I feel now.

_(-someone like-)_

My heart aches for something I can't identify and all I want now is for Vriska to come and sweep me away in her arms into a land where I don't have to worry about school or the fact that it's three A.M. or dances or Tavros or dates or jealousy.

_(well... someone like..._

_...me.)_

* * *

I try to keep my distance.

_Do you hate me? _I almost say a million times, watching the arch of her neck speak in lieu of her words:

_Perhaps._

When the teacher says "Maryam" she says "Here" in a tone that drips with authority and venom, and when she passes me in the hallways she sniffles coldly and turns away, clearly with a modus operandi:_ I am stubborn because you refuse to greet me and thus I shall not greet you._

My dreams are troubled with memories and fragments of people I know but somehow have forgotten, and although my arm's constant, dull pain keeps me from drifting _too_ far away, I feel lost anyway.

I lean against the kitchen counter and tilt my head back, taking a messy sip of vodka. I idly notice that I lost the cork for the bottle, hate myself lingeringly, and continue drinking straight from the container without even pouring it into a glass. I gulp the bitterness like a convicted criminal gulps the inevitable truth: without wincing, angrily finding fault with everything between swallows, pondering death and hypocrisy.

_What do I live for, Kanaya? _I want to shake the girl's shoulders and yell in her face, emotional and passionate, and then stare at her with _feeling_, not with cheesy feeling but with Shakespeare feeling. I want to dance with her again, once more captivated by the jade-green eyes that have become my twin ghosts, ever-present in fact and fiction.

I fear that she'll turn away and answer so chillingly that frost will froth at her pretty lips:

_I don't know, Serket._

_I don't know._

* * *

"Psttt."

Through my delirium, I can make out the features of a girl standing by the window seat.

"Whazza..." My skin prickles with gooseflesh, warning me to be alert, and winter cold suddenly fills my room at a speed that is, to my poor waking body, entirely too fast.

"It's me."

Vriska Serket (who else?!) stares at me from inside my side of the window, which she has somehow climbed into (it's on the second story! How did she even...)

"Go away," I force my eyes open more and choke through my tongue, but Vriska presses close anyway until she's right next to my bed, her cerulean eyes swirling with a desperate question.

"Do you hate me?"

I'm baffled by her words; they come to me as if in a cloud, faint and watery on my skin with the feeling of the night air.

"What?"

Vriska leans close, until I could probably count her eyelashes. Her breath is sour, like metal and wire, but it's strangely alluring, almost dangerous.

"Do you hate me?!" Her voice rises to a level I have never heard before, and she seizes the back of my head and tilts it up to meet hers.

"...No... I don't hate you."

She scrutinizes my face carefully.

"I don't hate you." I say it again, unnecessarily.

"Well, you should," Vriska Serket tangles her right hand's fingers in my hair and crushes her lips to mine with a fervor that I cannot try to understand, so I don't try and instead attempt to kiss back. Her mouth burns mine, and tastes exactly of her breath, alcoholic and nerve-wracking. It pairs just right with the involvement of her teeth, clicking against my own, and when her tongue, a curious little soft shape, prods my lower lip, I shiver.

"Do you still not undislike me?" the beautiful girl demands after two breathless minutes, pulling away and tossing a curtain of white-blonde hair from her eyes.

"Your double negatives confuse me," I smile. My abdomen feels a bit like there are melting organs inside of it somewhere when she smirks.

"Don't play me for a fool, or you, don't play you for a fool either, fool."

She trips over her words gracefully, and ends up stammering curses in a somewhat adorable fashion.

ARE WE FLIRTING?!, I think, and I actually say it aloud, apparently, because she laughs.

"Yes. Sure. Sure, flirtingiggiggig is fun. Nunununnun. Fun. Like the roller slide..."

"Vriska, you're drunk," I manage to say before she gives me a hard kiss.

"Shup up," is mumbled, and I, my cheeks bright red, oblige.

"Oh God it's good so addictive," she adds after another minute or so has passed and she has to stop to pant for air.

"Vriska. Vriska, please. Have sense," is what I know I need to say, but all I can do is stare at the blue-eyed perfection. She's clearly intoxicated, but regardless she's endearing, even angelic, in the absence of light. Her silhouette bends and bows like a shadow-puppet's, and her smile follows in the same back-and-forth motion, triumphant and slippery.

"Sleepy time," she yawns and nuzzles into my neck, pushing me down so she can have a large portion of the bed.

I'm too tired to argue.


	9. part 6: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_sound and fury, a high school au_

* * *

I wake up with the most extensive and ridiculous hangover I have ever had ever.

"OH MY GOD, MY HEAD HURTS ARGHFUCK," I whisper, but I must've actually shouted or something, because Kanaya, a breathtaking vision in a sheer nightgown, winces and closes her eyes.

"What happened last night?"

"You snuck into my room and scared the daylights out of me and then you fell asleep here."

The pretty girl continues to make her bed, (wait- I moved to the chair? I actually got out of bed!? I have no idea what I'm doing today!) neatly fluffing pillows as she does so. Somehow, this is incredibly soothing to watch, so instead of being a bitch I speak in a tone that's oddly childish.

"Why do you make your bed?"

"Why _don't_ you?"

Stubborn and somewhat cutely victorious about her comment, Kanaya turns on her heel and disappears into her large walk-in closet for a few minutes, emerging looking demure and calm. (Damn. I miss her smug smirk already.) For our dressed-down uniformless Friday, she seems to have chosen her first-day outfit; the long red sparkly skirt and white blouse, with the addition of an unbuttoned dark sweater. Her lips are sweet-looking, sugary as candy, I think out of nowhere, and immediately blame my hangover.

I realize I have yet to return a witty remark.

"Because I... don't want to." It starts out to be a strong statement ending in a curse, but then it peters out and becomes kinda pathetic-sounding.

"You shouldn't drink."

That was random.

I make a noncommittal noise at her and she moves closer, fussing over me.

She tuts over the state of my hair and it takes me a few seconds after that to realize she's carefully dressing me in jeans and one of her T-shirts.

"You sure I won't steal this when today's over?" I laugh bitterly at my own lame attempt at a poor person joke, but my mind is a million miles away. I'm only focusing on the feeling of her soft hands, her long fingers on my shoulders and my waist and oh _God!-_

"Vriska? Are you okay? You're hyperventilating."

"I'm fine-" I don't know pain anymore, even in my arm, because she's frowning in concern and it is disconcerting how close she is to me and the temperature of my face rises ten billion degrees.

"Okay, if you say so..." I know that voice because it is mine in most of my life: wary. I feel a rush of gratitude that she obviously doesn't believe me, doesn't try to wrap her tongue around my lies and swallow them whole. She keeps disbelief in that lovely head, keeps it held close to her the way she should, because I am Vriska Serket. Everyone should doubt me and nobody should trust me.

* * *

We make it out the door without being stopped by my parents because they left for work, thank God. I'm glad they see me as responsible and not necessarily hosting a hungover delinquent, and I'm glad they allow me to get up and ready all by myself.

I actually feel a little bad for betraying this trust, as I drive us both in the general direction of school. We make a detour by Vriska's so she can grab her schoolbooks, and she runs back out and hops in the car with frantic speed, as if worried I'll leave her.

"I wouldn't have..." I don't end the sentence because she tilts her head up and closes her eyes, obviously dismissing me for a moment.

I sense something dark and profound on her mind, as she wears her sternest philisophical revolutionary look. I tense and anticipate a deep observation.

She shakes hair out of her eyes.

"As a kid, I played pretend I was a pirate."

God damn it, she's almost obnoxious in her unpredictibility.

"Uh... what?"

This is, of course, by now my default response to Vriska-isms. I grimace at how I sound, then grimace at my display of self-conciousness-by-grimacing. (I'm probably too weird.)

"I seriously had this whole made up world and I would have my huge ship with all this treasure and shit in it and my name was Marquise Spinneret Mindfang and I had mind control powers and I fought the aristocrats to get their jewelry. Everybody feared Mindfang, and nobody messed with her or told her to do her homework or hollered that she was a lazy bitch who'd never amount to anything. No, they called her the greatest pirate the world has ever seen. As a child I had fantasies about knocking people out or even killing them with cannons and then stealing their treasure and laughing. Haha, that's the end of a life, ha ha time to celebrate. Isn't that pretty fucked up?"

"No," I tell her uselessly, because of course it is. If Vriska thinks something's fucked up, nobody changes her mind.

"But I learned to curse just so I could be more like a pirate and just was so eager to spit those words in a teachers' faces, make their eyes grow huge at the impudent girl, the rebel, the queen of the pirates. I was a psycho. Still am. I still sit up in trees and pretend they're my ship, in the back of my mind. And then I fall out of trees and break bones."

Her bitter tirade against the sins she has so willingly given hersef over to stirs something in me, a memory, the ghost of a boy running after me and calling me something.

"We used to play grand games too," I say haltingly. "I was an officer, or a sheriff, or a jail guard, and my friends were all robbers, and I had to catch them. I always let the worst ones go for some reason. Maybe because they were always the cute ones."

Vriska swivels in alarm, her shoe squeaking across the dashboard.

"Don't ever let the bad ones go," she says. "They deserve to be caught."

"I... it was just a game..."

"But it matters."

"All the kids played games..."

"No!" Rattly urgency is heard in her voice and she jerks my shoulder hard. (I take a moment to be thankful that we are at a train crossing and aren't moving.)

"Kanaya," she uses my name for the second time ever, "don't you see? You become who you play. I'm a pirate. You're still good, you have a chance."

"Your philosophy is ridiculous," I breathe, suddenly unable to process everything at once. The slow mournful hum of the train, the people staring from the windows wondering about things that have nothing to do with us, the Moon revolving around the Earth where we are and the Earth where we are revolving around the Sun, the brightness of which is somehow peeking through the clouds, the urgency of the setting and Vriska's face so close to mine is all too much.

"Then kiss me, Miss Righteous," Marquise Spinneret Mindfang tilts her head and gazes at me with eyes that are fantasy forever.

In the part of my brain reserved for terrible humor and snarkiness, I think it would be ironic and hilarious if she actually was a pira-

My hand on the steering wheel is numb, as is the other hand, which now rests on her waist. My lips move then, becoming free of feeling as they encounter hers.

Our makeout session (is it possible to _make out _with her? That phrase is so superficial. This... this thing... deserves a grander term, one that isn't used by the people who don't understand Us. But anything else sounds cheesy, so making out it is) is interrupted by angry honks from behind us. A small line of cars waits for us to move; the train has passed and we're remaining at a standstill.

"Damn the Man," Vriska, who is now not Mindfang, says as she settles against my shoulder.

"I'm trying to drive. Don't put your head there. It's dangerous."

"Scaredy-cat," she grins, showing sharper teeth than agreeable people usually have. Then again, she isn't very agreeable.

We get to school.

"Come on." She pulls me along by the hand, right into the building, and she doesn't drop it when we get into the main hall. Instead, she cackles wickedly, throwing her head back, a triumphant pirate, and we make an unbelievably fancy entrance, because we're _running. _Running, two differently-dressed-one-messy-one-neat sixteen-year-old girls, laughing like idiots, backpacks bouncing all over the place.

Equius's voice resounds like a bullhorn in front of us.

"No running in the-"

"Fuck the police!" Vriska cries enthusiastically at him, swinging my hand. I accept her cheerfulness and find myself gaining it too, and we run and laugh and snicker until we're both positively giddy.

"I can't believe we just ran through the hallway." The shock is still somewhat new to an inexperienced rule breaker (me.) Vriska, troublemaker extraordinaire, merely smirks and wags a finger.

"We did, though. And it's better now."

"What's better?"

"The school."

"Why?"

"Because nobody fucks with Mindfang."

I laugh.

"Don't even ask me what we are, because I don't know," she sings, setting the words to a tune unfamiliar to me.

"We're..."

"We're cohorts, Maryam, and do you know what cohorts do?"

"They're in cahoots?"

"Yes!" She seizes my hand and grins again, that rare smile I've seen a total of maybe four times.

"Let's be horribly awesome teenage stereotypes," she suggests.

I'm laughing too hard, and too much happiness is filling me. I am rendered speechless, instead letting the mixture of our mirth serve as a pact of agreement.

_Yes._

* * *

I can't decide how I feel.

I study my cohort's head and think about kissing her, the small noises she makes, the little motions of her soft tongue on mine.

Meh, words are overrated for this anyway.

* * *

The dance is tonight. I can't believe that never crossed my mind this morning.

I'm curling the fringes of my hair, having just taken a long shower and used up the last of my sweet-smelling lotion.

I still feel faint pangs of jealousy that Vriska is going with Tavros. I gave her the dress at the end of the day, and she'd touched my hand briefly, smiled and disappeared.

She hasn't tried it on in front of me. I hope it fits, otherwise I'll feel awful.

I shake my head vigorously. I should worry about my own current preoccupations.

* * *

There is a knock on my door at precisely six-ten. It sounds hesitant and shy, and right away I know who it is. I gulp down butterflies. Nobody's ever seen me in a dress.

Phhh, nervousness. Mindfang isn't nervous. Be Mindfang, Vriska.

"Hey," I smile confidently (I hope), opening it to see- yes, Tavros. He looks somewhat adorable in his suit jacket, white shirt and tie.

"You look nice," he stammers, handing me a corsage. I accept it with my standard smirk and nod. Gotta keep up the delinquent image.

"So do you," I finally say, when he has helped me into his car, an old rickety affair that's probably in worse shape than Damien.

We get there on time. (Punctuality is strange and new to me, but it's okay.)

I feel very nervous.

God. I am such a cliche.

* * *

A/N: One more chapter till this story-in-story is over. The oneshots will continue.

Thank you for all of my reviews. I love you guys. Endless hearts. :)


	10. la fin: sound and fury, a high school au

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_sound and fury, a high school au_

* * *

I'm hanging out by the punch bowl. Equius is watching me like a hawk, frowning. He probably wants me to spike the punch just so he has some duty to do. He seems hyper, though, looking around until he sees Aradia. She looks very pretty, and grudgingly happy (for one who calls herself an emo, anyway), in a pale green dress. The corsage on her wrist matches the one pinned to the tall boy's chest. I decide they make an adorable couple when I see Equius lift his hand and wave shyly at his date.

"Come dance," she grins, and he nods, sweeping her up and twirling her around. He's actually really good. He probably took lessons out of nervousness. I giggle to myself at the thought.

Butterflies stir in my stomach, then my head begins to actually pound as I spot Tavros entering. He cleans up nicely, and he seems bashfully smiley in his suit coat and tie. On his arm is Vriska.

...I feel like I have been put in one of those terrible romantic comedies where the girl walks down the stairs and the guy nearly faints.

Vriska is the only thing in the room that matters because she emits light. She is radiant, and her lips are pursed in a little smile as if she knows this. The music should be dreamy and swoopy, and it is, some acoustic sweet tune that carries her along as she walks. I can't not stare at her smooth, pretty shoulders, the way the straps fall just slightly down. I made her this dress, but she must have influenced my thoughts while I was making it, because it suits her almost unfairly well. _Oh my God_, I almost murmur in awe. My masterpiece is white and a falls little past her knees, made of shiny fabric as bright as her eyes, and featuring a blue zodiac symbol is on the front: an M, supposed to represent her birth month's sign. Right now, it could mean anything, including Mystery. Every head in the room angles toward her, and, attention seeker that she is, she tilts her head and sways slightly, the dress hugging her hips and legs. Her hair is down and she must have made it more wavy than usual. It flies everywhere, as wild and impossible as she is.

It takes me five full minutes to realize her left arm is still in a cast. I'm too distracted by everything else.

Her eyes, swirling and blue, meet mine under the lights. I feel hot, a specimen being x-rayed by laser beams and scanners.

"Hello," she mouths, and I fall under her spell. I feel my legs moving, carrying me toward her. Music begins blaring louder, and the gym is dark, steamy with emotions.

"'You look nice' doesn't do you justice," I whisper breathlessly, and her smile becomes a smirk.

"Nor you."

"I'm going to get some punch," Tavros stammers, and stumbles to the table with refreshments.

"Okay," the goddess of the Valentine's Day dance tosses after him. She leans close to me, her teeth bared. Smile or death threat? One never knows with Vriska.

"How are you tonight, Maryam?"

Sweat drips down my neck and I feel cold chills burst from somewhere deep inside of me. My answer is given in mostly a cough.

"I'm good."

I realize I forgot a pleasantry.

"And you?"

Vriska winks. I catch my breath finally, just as she murmurs in my ear.

"I am _splendid_ looking at you in that outfit."

"Ha-ah," I probably say.

She whirls around to speak to the apathetic DJ. He's pimply and bored-looking, maybe a senior in college, wearing too much hair gel. His eyes bug out when he gets a look at Vriska, and who could blame him? The girl whispers something in his ear, her lashes fluttering seductively, and he clicks through his computer program nervously.

_What is she playing at_? I wonder.

I understand when music, loud and somewhat badass, starts to blare from the speakers. The student body's general reaction is head-tilting and confusion, as they don't know this band or song.

Vriska is the queen of bribery tonight.

She grabs my hand and she twirls me around, beginning to move to the rhythm of the song.

"What is this?" I ask.

"It's called Black Sheep, and it's by Metric."

"Okay," I shrug.

As Tavros socializes with his friends who are not dancing, Vriska presses closer against me. The music slams through my heartbeat, the wooden floor throbbing, and I feel like I'm floating on a cloud, albeit loud, that only contains the two of us. Her hair brushes against my bare shoulders, and she's practically grinding her hips against mine, creating hot shocks of something in my lower abdomen. A new song, some popular thing from a few years ago, comes on, and it has the same low, pulsing beat. We keep dancing. Vriska is achingly sexy, tossing her head and making this look effortless, and I have a hard time not arching my neck and begging for... for what? Desire is reckless and impulsive and scary, I've been told, but in reality it feels so good to be in over my head with want. It's a new sensation, and I have no doubt she senses it too, because she moves faster.

"I thought you said you couldn't dance."

"I never said I couldn't fast dance. Besides, I'm improvising."

"Your improvisation is amazing," I groan hoarsely, and she winks again.

"That's the point, baby."

* * *

Kanaya is extremely attractive.

Seriously. Every guy in the room has their eyes on that body. She's smoking hot. I can almost feel it when I touch her. The red dress is strapless, and the sight of her exposed skin makes me feverish with lust.

She is so attractive she puts Aradia to shame, and Aradia is right now being asked to dance by several admirers- admirers who are _senior boys_.

Kanaya is wantable. Endlessly so.

There's desire in this half-relationship.

I have came to this conclusion in the past, but never as forcefully as now.

"They're playing Justin Bieber," I growl. "Let's ditch this institution of madness."

"What? Why? But... Tavros!"

"He'll live," I shrug, feeling no guilt.

I take her hand and we sidle out a door while Stupid Equius is distracted.

The hallways are dimly lit, and we hasten to the nearest exit. But it's locked, and a policeman with a nightstick prowls right past us, giving us the evil eye.

"Damn," Kanaya hisses. I grin.

"Come on."

I lead her to the bathroom, and gesture to the window.

"Are you insane?" Her eyes are wide, her voice rising to a high pitch in the echoey room. I shush her.

"Justin Bieber, Kanaya," I remind her. "They're playing Justin Bieber. Plus, we already danced, didn't we?"

She nods and tries to calm down while I prop the window open with my shoe.

"Voila." It's a five-foot drop to the ground. I leap out and land easily, then catch Kanaya as she jumps. She's soft and warm and pleasant in my arms.

"I'm not a baby," she grumbles, handing me my shoe back.

"Sure." I take her hand and we skip to the parking lot. It's dark outside, the singular unbroken streetlamp buzzing quietly. The moon keeps silent watch over everything, a dish made of silver in the night sky.

I detach my fingers from hers and hold out my hand impatiently when we reach her car.

"Keys. Give me the keys."

"How many times have you done this? Snuck out via the bathroom, I mean."

"Oh, twenty-five," I smile, feeling like the neighborhood badass.

Soon we are on the backroads leading to our destination. There's something comforting about driving fast in the dark, the headlights bouncing off the asphalt, the wind cool and comforting as it streams in through the half-opened window. I want to yell into the empty, mostly-sleeping world, yell my name to make them realize exactly who I am, but it suddenly feels childish. Maybe I'm growing up. I take Kanaya's hand in mine again, carefully because it's my left arm, and keep driving with my right.

* * *

Vriska looks even more splendid in the white moonlight as she stops the car and gets out. We are somewhere I've never been, the empty lot next to an ivy-covered church with a tall clock tower. I want to ask what we're doing, but I'm afraid to break the fragile quiet.

As silent as a shadow- well, one that leads instead of following- she crawls through a small hole in the wall with complete disregard for her dress. I accompany her reluctantly.

Cobwebs coat the inner walls, and even though we're not speaking at the moment, voices seem to reverberate from the dingy altar. Ghosts are everywhere, I think, memories of the people who lived and died here.

"Don't be so morbid, Maryam," Vriska looks at me suddenly. "It's not haunted, and no one perished in this building. It's just abandoned."

She takes me all the way up to the top of the tower. We have to shuffle single-file up an old spiral staircase whose railing is threatening to break off, brush dust from our clothes, and heave a trapdoor out of the way, but we are eventually ensconced in a snug lookout perch.

And what a lookout it is. The entire town can be viewed, or most of it, through the glassless window we're standing on tiptoes to peer through, and we can see the school, where our peers are, dancing and chattering.

"I don't think anything has to be official." My own voice surprises me, and Vriska turns her head in my direction.

"No," she smiles, then adds.

"But it is understood, yes?"

"What is understood?"

Her voice takes a poetic tone as she begins to speak words, words that turn into long beautiful sentences.

"It is understood that I am evil and you are good and we will balance, and it is understood that we can't play cops and robbers at this age because we are too old. But that doesn't make us any less cop and robber, you see. I think you are an interesting creature and I am sure you find me the same, and I think your lack of despicableness is intriguing, and I think that we could get away with a lot of things if we wanted to. But we don't have to."

"I think you _are_ a poet," is all I can say to her soliloquy. She laughs and kisses me deeply, and I have a small moment of enlightenment where it doesn't matter that sticky spiderwebs are covering me or this stone wall is pressing into my back. All that matters is Vriska, and unraveling the threads to find a girl, not a crazed delinquent. She is a human being, like me and like Terezi and like Tavros, and she is a fragile and breakable human being. Vriska isn't solvable. Neither am I. None of us are.

* * *

And we were happy that moment of that day. Who's to say it won't be true in a year, a month, a week, an hour? But I'm alive in this moment. And this moment matters terribly.

* * *

_La Fin_

_(for the AU, anyway.)_


	11. in which kanaya overthinks greetings

_Soteriophobia and Snark_

_part eleven: in which kanaya overthinks greetings_

* * *

_morning:_

**_Hi._**

_It intertwines them like a vow, a one-word promise of something just out of reach._

_It is stupid, Vriska declares vehemently, so she never says it. It's Kanaya. She always says it. Vriska says H8y._

_H8y, or Hey, (whichever really) works like this, Kanaya decides:_

_"I acknowledge your existence and casually nudge you in a hello while still maintaining my image and cool, and the amount of ellipses I add after said hey are large indicators of my current mood."_

_And Kanaya sends_

**_Hi._**

_because "Good morning, sweetheart," is a bit too nerve-wracking._

* * *

**_night:_**

_It is implied that when she signs off that there are a thousand things she didn't say.*_

I'm vision-blindingly redundant-phrase-sayingly in love with you, _Kanaya doesn't say._

I know,_ Vriska doesn't say._

_(what they don't say, you see, is so obvious and yet so not.)_

_I miss you, and I wish you were here. I love you._

* * *

_*The pronoun she__ here refers to both of them._

* * *

Kanaya counts the days until she can see Vriska again and recounts and recounts, curses the sunset, and falls asleep trying to decode the enigma that is her flushed crush.

Kanaya finds it odd that she can list the number of times she's called Vriska by her real name on one hand

(it's usually some shortening of her screen name)

and yet they've shared all of the secrets in the world.

Kanaya says she doesn't like getting up, but she's thrilled waking up in the morning to see

**_H8y._**

* * *

_~a rare dedication:_

_ to wbm__  
_

_hi.~_


	12. part twelve redux: the edge of the cliff

A/N: Please spare me. I am already being given hell about not updating anything for months. I'm so sorry. Sometimes your ships sink, you know?  
I decided to try something a little different. A hint of kismesitude.

* * *

_Soteriophobia and Snark_  
_part twelve redux: the edge of the cliff_

* * *

Vriska thinks the idea of suicide is hilarious. She can't stand herself, but she'd never tie a hard knot around her throat and step out off of a bridge. Or so she thinks. She doesn't really know. Sometimes she likes to stand on the ledge near her hive and stare down into the blackness, her feelings threatening to overwhelm her. She likes the power in stepping back, in thinking I will not kill myself today. She likes the thought of a papery gold sticker pinned on her chest: This girl has self control. She knows what she's doing.

She hates order. She hates control. Walking a straight line, doing anything the same way, it's all poison, dust in her mouth and on her tongue, making her choke.

Kanaya thinks suicide is foolish for reasons even she does not know. She sees no honor in dying with your own life clutched selfishly to your chest. She once cut her wrist with a knife and thought so this is what people feel like. It didn't work too well. She got blood all over the carpet and had to clean it up.

They make a nauseatingly cute couple, but also there's the chance that Vriska doesn't do couples. Maybe she likes it rough, a few one-night stands a month, and Kanaya hates herself for being so pliable, but she's addicted to the chaos and the disorder and the entropy that Vriska is.

"I hate you, Kan," Vriska reminds her, and digs her teeth more firmly into Kanaya's collarbone. A moan is a sign of weakness, so the other troll doesn't react. Instead, she yanks at Vriska's hair, pulling her legs across Vriska's lap, kissing her with messy anger, blood dripping from the violence of it. Kanaya can be mean when she wants to be, and she has a vast number of slurs at her disposal, but instead she plays the game and growls against their clashing teeth.  
"Don't call me Kan. I fucking hate that."  
"Ooh, sassy, are we?" Vriska gives a noise that could be indicated as a gasp. With feigned indifference, Not Kan touches her waist, her hips, her legs. If Vriska can't give her romantic attention, she'll take this. This is horrible and ugly, and it's no secret that Kanaya dislikes having to do this. Any quadrant but being her moirail, right? She's the worst kismesis in the world, and Vris is unsurprisingly good at it.

* * *

_La Fin_


End file.
